I first wrote about Evergold Corp at the end of April in a series called Compelling Junior Explorecos. Since then, the precious metals market has taken off, sumer has rolled around, and the share price is up 83% ($0.49 in April at time of writing to last Friday's close of $0.90. Most importantly, the company has begun it's work on both it's flagship properties, Snoball and Golden Lion.
The company has done an excellent job keeping it's shareholders up-to-date with various interviews, news releases and media/video to go with them. [Evergold Photo Gallery]
Update on Snoball:
Drilling started on June 30th on hole DDH SB20-001, per the July 2nd news release. The company plans to drill 3 initial holes. Lengths will depend on visuals and XRF inspection and may be adjusted based on what they see. The drill will then be rotated 45-90 degree increments.
The Pyramid Peak pad will serve as the ‘hub’ from which a series of
holes will radiate outwards in a ‘hub and spoke’ arrangement... drilled to the southwest at an azimuth of 225 degrees ... hole SB20-001 (now drilling) at an inclination of 50 degrees from horizontal and approximately 400 metres in length, followed by an undercut at an inclination of 70 degrees from horizontal and a targeted 325 metres down-hole, and finally a vertical hole to a depth of 300 metres.
Holes may be longer or shorter than plan depending upon combined visual and XRF inspection of core in the field. Thereafter the drill will be rotated in 45 to 90-degree increments, and the process repeated with two holes per ‘spoke’ (the vertical having already been drilled).
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| View West Over Apex Drill Pad Toward Snoball Ridge Snoball Project |
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| View Southwest Over Drill on Apex Pad Pyramid Peak Snoball Project |
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| View North Toward Apex Drill Pad and Pyramid Peak Snoball Project |
Drills started turning on June 30th, making today the 13th day of drilling. Which got my wondering, how much drilling are they able to get done?
I was able to exchange a few emails with the CEO, Kevin Keough to provide some additional insights on how the drill program was progressing:
Question: I noticed there's quite a bit of snow, much colder than usual this year but seems to be melting. Have you been able to get crews on/off to rotate shifts to drill around the clock, or have clouds at time interferred with that?
Kevin Keough: "We've been able to drill 24/7, without letup, though weather does at times prevent timely crew changes and slinging core - they just keep working until we can get there, and sling out the accumulated core."
Question: Can you give a rough estimate of the approximate number of meters that could be drilled in one 12-hour shift?
Kevin Keough: "45m-ish, sometimes 60m, sometimes less. Depends on ground conditions - highly weathered and fractured ground takes longer, good competent rock goes faster"
Question: In the last news release, it was mentioned either HQ or NQ core will be drilled - HQ per my understanding is larger in diameter (KK: "Yes") - so more material can be taken out but would be drilled slower. Would you drill with larger core sizes when you want to get more information on orientation of a potential system?
Kevin Keough: "Obviously it's good to have more rather than less core, though one has to balance the somewhat slower drill speed with HQ. HQ is preferred in less competent ground, as even if you only get partial core recovery, you still get more than you would with partial core from NQ. Depending on the drill's power, in deeper holes, say below 250 or 300 metres, one would typically step down as drilling with HQ will progressively slow with greater depths, as the equipment struggles to overcome the increasing friction and turn the weightier string"
Now, anyone can do some basic math here - so, let me speculate here:
Drills have been turing 24/7 without letup, and today would be the 13th day of drilling. They're achieving lets say 50meters (range of 45-60m+) per shift, so approximately 100meters per day, multiply that by 13 and you get about 1300 meters drilled since the drills started turning about 2 weeks ago.
Making these assumptions, it would mean that the company is already half-way through it's anticipated 2400meter Phase I drilling program and should be able to complete those meters on Snoballl by the end of July.
Now, we'll of course have to wait for assays to see if we have a discovery and see if the company decides to ramp up the drill program at Snoball. Based on the geochem work though, my hopes are that there is one - and that the key question that we would all want to know is what the grades look like. As per the company's news release, we will have to wait approximately 5-7 weeks for them to go through the entire flow for results to come out. A reminder though, as I mentioned in [This Article] , the labs could be backlogged due to the large number of meters going into the labs at this time of the year. It'll have to be a game of wait and see.
Nonetheless, I'm glad to see that the drills are turning at full speed - and they'll have plenty of time to drill perhaps 6000 meters more meters or so, if warranted, in August/September (and maybe more if they can get into mid October). The assumption of course is that the weather doesn't prevent this from occuring.
Update on Golden Lion:
Golden Lion is approximately 3-4 weeks or so later in drill commencement compared to the June 30 start at Golden Lion as the company stated in it's last news release that it's tentative drill start date is July 25th.
Following target refinement and prioritization, a Phase 1 drill program encompassing 2,400 metres of drilling, focused on multiple high priority targets within the GL1, GL2 and GL3 target areas, is expected to commence on approximately July 25.
Again with Golden Lion, I was curious on the progress on the exploration and Kevin was able to shed some additional insights:
Question: Are you able to comment on the Archaeological survey and if there were any issues there?
Kevin Keough: "That went fine - no 'finds' whatsoever"
Question: Would there be any difficulties with additional geochem/soil sampling/IP work if there is lingering snow on the property? There has been cooler weather up in NW BC this year impacting snow melts.
Kevin Keough: "Yes snow does pose a problem for geochem and IP work - and it is indeed still melting up there. However, the good news is that the snow has melted off very rapidly lately - we cover those areas that are free of snow, then come back later to wrap up any missed bits."
Mother nature - that's something that no one can control, but the company continues to execute as best it can to overcome some of these challenges, with drills set to start turning in the next few weeks.
Summary
I continue to be very excited with Evergold Corp (and their chances of potentially one or more discoveries). The company sounds like they're off without any major hiccups in terms of meters coming out of the ground at Snoball. The exploration work at Snoball is in full swing and drilling should be starting in the next weeks.
The real market-grabbing headlines will come, when and if the company announces initial results from Snoball, and then Golden Lion (GL1/2/3) targets, which I expect to start sometime next month.
We've had quite the run up from $0.49 to $0.90, but I completely expect, that in the situation where a discovery is made, that the price to continue to run.
The share structure is tight - and should likely respond very well to good news.
As a reminder; junior exploration is
very risky - I remind you to read the disclaimer.
Hope you enjoyed the article -
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Disclaimer:
The author is not a registered
investment advisor, currently has a long position in this stock. The author has
not been paid by anyone to write this article. All facts are to be checked by
the reader. For more information go to https://www.evergoldcorp.ca/ and read
the company’s profile and official documents on www.sedar.com,
also for important risk disclosures. This article is provided for
information purposes only, and is not intended to be investment advice of
any kind, and all readers are encouraged to do their own due diligence, and
talk to their own licensed investment advisors prior to making any investment
decisions.